Du Bois Freedom Center to Commemorate Juneteenth with Event Featuring Congresswoman Nikema Williams of Georgia
The Du Bois Freedom Center announced the first event in its 2024 Reflections on Democracy salon series. The Center will commemorate Juneteenth by hosting An Evening with Congresswoman Nikema Williams who will be in conversation with the Du Bois Freedom Center’s Visiting Scholar on Democracy, Michael Blake. The June 19th event will start at 6pm at Saint James Place. This event is free, open to the public, and all are welcome at attend. Registration is required via this link.
The Center’s Reflections on Democracy is a series of educational events and public programs that ask featured scholars, elected officials, students, artists, musicians, philanthropists, and the community, to share their hopes for our democracy and reflections via this site in response to the following Du Bois passage:
"...I dream of a world of infinitive and valuable variety; not in the laws of gravity or atomic weights, but in human variety in height and weight, color and skin, hair and nose and lip. But more especially and far above and beyond this, is a realm of true freedom: in thought and dream, fantasy and imagination; in gift, aptitude, and genius—all possible manner of difference, topped with freedom of soul to do and be, and freedom of thought to give to a world and build into it, all wealth of inborn individuality. Each effort to stop this freedom of being is a blow at democracy—that real democracy which is reservoir and opportunity . . . There can be no perfect democracy
curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even Peace.”
- Excerpt from The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History, 1947.
The Du Bois Freedom Center will also host a monthly Saturday in the Sanctuary – a community open house and guided tour at the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church located at 9 Elm Court on
Saturday, June 22nd at 10am for those interested in visiting the site to learn about how this historic church served as the spiritual, cultural, and political hub of African American life in this southern Berkshire community for more than 130 years, and receive updates about the church’s future as the home of The W. E. B. Du Bois Center for Freedom and Democracy – an African American cultural and heritage site dedicated to celebrating the life and legacy of civil rights pioneer and NAACP co- founder, Dr. Du Bois, as well as the rich African American history of The Berkshires. Space is limited. Advance registration is required via this link.
For more information about the Du Bois Freedom Center, to register for an upcoming public program, or to make a donation, please visit: www.duboisfreedomcenter.org, call: 413-673-1032, or email:office@duboisfreedomcenter.org,